Joshua 5:4

This is the reason why Joshua had them all circumcised: all those who left Egypt—the men of fighting age—had died on the journey through the wilderness after the Exodus.

Free Bible Version

In The King James Version

And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise: All the people that came out of Egypt, that were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness by the way, after they came out of Egypt.

In Context

3Joshua had flint knives made and all male Israelites were circumcised at the place that became known as “the hill of foreskins.”

5They had all been circumcised when they left Egypt, but those born on the journey since then had not.

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Cross References

Numbers 26:64However, they did not include a single one who had previously been censused by Moses and Aaron the priest when they counted the Israelites in the Sinai Desert,

Deuteronomy 2:14The time it took for us to travel from Kadesh-barnea to when we crossed over the Brook of Zered was thirty-eight years. By this time the entire generation of warriors had died and were no longer part of the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them would happen.

1 Corinthians 10:5However, God wasn't happy with most of them, and they perished in the desert.

Matthew Henry on Joshua 5:2-10

The Circumcision of the Israelites. ( b. c. 1451.) 1 And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel. 2 At that time the Lord said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives, and circumcise again… Read the whole commentary →

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